Susannah Davidson

In the chapel of St Andrew in Westminster Abbey is a memorial to Susannah Davidson. Only the mural tablet with a female head at the top enclosed in drapery now remains in the chapel. In 1876 the relief on the monument, in an oval tablet with a figure of Death plunging his dart into the breast of a young woman who is supported by an Angel pointing to the joys of Heaven, was removed to the Abbey triforium and can now be seen on the wall there. The sculptor was Richard Hayward.

The inscription reads:

Sacred to the memory of Susannah Jane Davidson, only daughter of William Davidson, of Amsterdam, merchant. Her form, the most elegant and lovely, was adorned by the native purity and simplicity of her mind, which was improved by every accomplishment education could bestow. It pleased the Almighty to visit her, in the bloom of her life, with a lingering and painful disease, which she endured with fortitude and Christian resignation, and of which she died at Paris, January 1 1767, aged twenty. To her much loved memory, this monument is erected by her afflicted father

It is not clear why William decided to erect a memorial to her in the Abbey. She was the great aunt of Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury. A great beauty she was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.